The Space Between
by Swamy
Summary: Tumblr prompt: "Arthur, pinning Morgana against the wall in the stables. Relationship status: in absolutely fucking denial. Tone: sexual fucking tension".


**Note:** This is the result of a prompt I received over my tumblr a few months ago. Since the pairing is being neglected by all of us, I decided to add this to my fanfictions so that those in need of a bit of some armor can have a chance to read it. Because s1 seems like a completely different show from the following seasons, in my mind Arthur and Morgana are not related (in this version of the legend). An anonymous person requested "Arthur, pinning Morgana against the wall in the stables. Relationship status: in absolutely fucking denial. Tone: sexual fucking tension".

#

She's spurring her horse harder than usual and Arthur calls her name to no avail. He wonders if she's running towards her life or away from it. The question in his mind is only muffled by the drumming sound of his own heart, trying to break his ribcage from the inside.

Arthur follows her close, watches her shoulders, the way her long black braid hits her back, the way her waist curves and dips inside male trousers that leave little to the imagination while her legs press against the sides of her white mount.

Any proper young Lady would just sit and wait for the official marriage proposal, but she's not any proper Lady (and she should not wait for the official marriage proposal from any prince).

Arthur learned at fifteen to pay little attention to her admirers – men with poor taste that couldn't help but behave like idiots for a smile. It was unbecoming and bothersome, and they couldn't dare hope and win the affections of the King's ward. She was too young, too precious to Uther's heart, too _Morgana_.

But she's not that young anymore, and Uther sees the advantage of a royal union between the House of the Frankish King Claudas and their own, which would avoid spilling any more blood between their lands and would put a stop to the scheming that has been going on for generations. And Morgana is horridly taciturn about it.

She should shout and scream and lament about the arrogance of men that presume to decide her life like it was a thing to dispose. She should be locked up in her room right now playing a battle of will with his father, trying to convince him to side with her against this ridiculous, unjust matter.

Instead she's racing him to the stables, leaving him to stare at her graceful back and the way the sun makes her hair look blacker.

She has the audacity to laugh, like she has not a single care in the world, when she gets off her mount, stumbling on her own feet because of how she rushes about.

"Careful," he admonishes her, voice low and hard.

Arthur is there to catch her immediately, hands too tight about her waist, making her breath hitch in her throat as their eyes lock together. And then she's giggling again, slipping away from his fingers so very easily he wonders if he ever had her at all.

The scent of damask rose of her hair so faint he would have imagined it. Very soon, when she's not around to bother him and put him in the unpleasant position to mediate between her obstinacy and his father's rules, he will hate that scent. He does that already.

Leave it to a woman to be so fickle.

"Does happiness make you clumsy?" he asks, trying his best not to bite the words.

Morgana doesn't turn around as she takes her horse by the reins and guides him to his corner of the royal stables in soft murmurs that makes his blood tingle inside the veins.

"Beating you hardly makes me lightheaded with joy, Arthur, considering how often that occurs," she smiles triumphantly at him for a short moment before going back to pat her horse.

Her smile is a bit too bright, or maybe he just wishes it to be so, so that he can tell himself this is a farce and she's not going to marry a stupid prince from a stupid land called Terre Deserte. What can she find in a place called _Land Laid Waste?_ What can possibly make her swallow her opposition and be so calm about it all?

"You must be so happy," he says, walking towards her with a careful step, "Aren't all the young maidens happy to marry a prince?"

"Most of them," she says with a nod and a wicked light in her eyes, "At least you have your title going for you."

"And what does Prince Claudin have?"

Her smile becomes tense but she doesn't lose the playful attitude. Like this is a game.

"Well, if you're so interested I'll have you know he is a rather handsome man–"

" _Passable_ ," he grimaces.

"–and he seems open-minded and modern." Well, this is one game she's going to lose because when this so called open-minded prince with _barely agreeable_ looks gets tired of all her nonsense and the way she speaks out of turn, he won't be around to clean up her messes and he won't spare her a second thought. He will be too busy with his tournaments, the training of his knights, and impossible task of singling one lady out of all the options he'll have at his hands.

Even right now, he doesn't care at all what she chooses to do with her future.

"I'm so hungry," she says, changing the subject, "Maybe we could steal something from the kitchen."

It's been years since they did something like that. Arthur's hands were always sweating when they pressed against each other behind the pantry in the dying light of the day. Sometimes she hid her mouth in the crook of his neck to muffle the sound of the giggling that escaped her. Luckily for them the old cook was half deaf and they never got caught.

They stopped when Arthur realized his body would not follow his will anymore, for it was clearly so virile that even a little thing like Morgana could affect it. She called him a coward when he began refusing her their little trips to the kitchen, but it was embarrassing to admit something like that, and she would have misunderstood that for interest on his part, mistaking him for one of those idiots that wrote her letters and spent their free time staring vacantly at the window of her chambers.

"And what if you won't fit into your bridal dress anymore?" he asks, faking a horrified expression, "He can find you agreeable until he doesn't concentrate on the things that leave your mouth, so you better have something to distract him with."

"So, you think my looks distracting?" she asks, turning her head towards him to realize too late how close they are standing. The playful light in her eyes falters for a moment.

Arthur takes another step towards her, making her back away instinctively. She's pressed against the stable wall and irritated by her own reaction, so she raise her chin proudly, looks at him like she's the queen and he's the loyal subject. A part of him can't chase away the truthfulness of it, and yet he's the prince, only blood of Uther Pendragon, champion of Camelot and future king; and she's supposed to tremble in front of him, to recognize his power over her. Instead, here they are, and the way her button down shirt — _his_ button down shirt, she stole it when he was fourteen and kept it to use whenever they rode together. It wouldn't fit him anymore, but it fits her so well — brushes against his own is making the muscles of his stomach tighten and his blood run faster. It's a state he can recognize, though it takes him by surprise.

"Yes, very," he admits, sarcastically, one hand reaching out to take a yellow leaf from her hair to show it to her before giving her figure a disapproving look, trying to anchor his reason to her muddy boots and the creased clothes and the inappropriate redness of her cheeks, made so by the wind.

His honorable try fails miserably.

He's a strong man and his virility gets in the way of taunting her the way he'd like to, not because she's so beautiful he can hardly avoid taking her against the wall of the stable and showing her once and for all how silly is to entertain the mere thought of marrying another, but because his manliness cannot be contained. To highlight the concept, he can feel his body harden and he's too angry at her to back away and hide the fact so he'll risk her indignation, maybe enjoy it even. But she doesn't move and he doesn't either, and there's still some space between them, too little to be decent but enough that he can pretend to not notice, because she's Morgana and they grew up together and it would be utterly ridiculous for anyone to think that he has any interest in her. He has none.

Only, the damask rose scent of her skin is mixing with the earth and the straw and the animals' smell and the pull of his tight muscles are becoming pleasurable.

"I hope he doesn't change his mind," Arthur says, praying that his voice doesn't sound tense, "I'm so close to being freed of you, it would be cruel of him to play me so."

"Yes, so close," she agrees with a raspy voice that seems to caress a very precise part of his anatomy. Morgana takes a breath as she prepares herself to leave him, and he wonders if she can smell it too, the change in the air, the earth and the straw and the animals. And maybe something of him that will make her notice the subtle way their clothes brush together when her breasts raise to briefly meet his chest, and an agreeable tingling under her skin, and the way it would be so easy for them to press together the way they did when they hid in the kitchen to steal whatever they were hungry for.

Her eyes seem to falter for a moment, and he hopes she's going to stumble on her feet, lightheaded once again. He'll catch her, again, fingers so tight about her waist she'll see his touch in the mirror the next time she looks at her naked body (he's not hardening painfully at the thought), but it takes her a moment to regain her control and walk away from him.

Her eyes peek down as she slips between him and the wall, falling on the ungracious bulge in his trousers and making her eyes darken. Or maybe he just imagines it.

He will probably imagine so much more when he's alone in his bed tonight. Not that it means anything.


End file.
